scoreless

Scoreless is an adjective used to describe the absence of points, goals, or runs in a game or performance. It is commonly applied across sports and other contexts to indicate that no scoring occurred or that a participant did not record any points.

In team sports, a scoreless game means neither side has scored, commonly reflected as a 0-0 result, as in soccer or hockey. The term can also describe a particular portion of play, such as a scoreless inning in baseball, where a pitcher prevents any runs from scoring during that frame, or a scoreless stretch by a defense.

In baseball, scoreless innings contribute to a pitcher's overall outing; a pitcher who allows no runs through several innings may be said to have pitched scorelessly. In soccer, a scoreless draw or goalless draw describes a match in which neither team scores.

Etymology traces scoreless to the noun score meaning points, with the suffix -less indicating absence; the compound has been in use in English since at least the 19th century in sporting contexts.

Outside sports, scoreless can describe the absence of a musical score in a film, video game, or theater production, though this usage is infrequent and typically described with phrases such as "lacking a musical score" rather than simply "scoreless."